


by the time you wake

by colourexplosion



Category: Captain America (2011), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-25
Updated: 2012-04-25
Packaged: 2017-11-04 07:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colourexplosion/pseuds/colourexplosion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time James Barnes meets Steve Rogers is one of the the worst days of his life. </p><p> </p><p>(Bucky's POV, major character death, obviously, based in movie-verse)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. a great climb

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this fic is a WIP and unbeta'd as usual. it's also based heavily in the movie-verse. I had a sudden influx of bucky feels and had to write this!
> 
> edit: now finished.

The day James Barnes meets Steven Rogers is one of the worst days of his life. 

It's raining, to say the least-- to say the most would be to say there's a torrential downpour, the great flood, not that James knows what the word 'torrential' means-- and James _hates_ the rain. His mother says he's like a cat because he can't stand the feeling of water on his head, and James just presses his lips together and doesn't say anything back, because he knows the feel of his own umbrella on his hide and it stings like nothing he's ever felt before. 

Of course, he's eight years old, and it's the middle of the jazz age, so James does not yet know the sting of hunger that will haunt him later. 

When he gets to school-- umbrella in tow with his knit hat pulled tight over his head and too-big-hand-me-down raincoat belted tightly at his waist-- he runs right into someone, a very large and _thick_ someone, making them drop their books on the slick, muddy floor. 

"I'm sorry," James squeaks at the boy, but the next thing he knows is the collision of a fist with his jaw. 

He wakes up in the infirmary, blinking at the harsh lights in his eyes. He brings his hand up to touch the spot on his jaw where he can feel his heartbeat and a jolt of pain shoots through him so quick and so hard that his vision whites out for a moment. He must groan when it happens, too, because the next thing he knows a nurse is walking over. 

"You awake, then, sweetheart?" she says, her voice a harsh rasp against his ears, and James nods. He sits up slowly, afraid to speak in case his jaw falls off. 

The nurse checks his pupils, has him follow her fingers and say how many she's holding up. 

"Three," he croaks out, wincing at his jaw. 

"Do you feel dizzy at all?" she asks gently, tilting his head to see his jaw better. "You hit your head real good when you fell. Tommy Spencer really walloped you. Might have a concussion." 

James groans in response, and the nurse clicks her tongue. 

"All right, well, I'm gonna leave you in here for awhile. Try not to fall asleep, in case you do have a concussion," she tells him, walking through the partition in the room to her desk. 

James takes the time to look around the room, eyes passing over the various posters and the scale, where he knows he tops out at forty-five pounds, much to skinny for his slightly below average height and age. Sometimes, especially in James' family, it's just too hard to find the extra food that all the growing kids need. 

He brings his knees up to his chest and stares at a poster of the muscular system until the nurse gives him a small bag of ice for his jaw. He holds it there tenderly, flinching at the sudden temperature change. 

The door bursts open a few moments later, and a kid stands in the doorway, leaning heavily on the frame. He's scrawny, scrawnier than James, if that's possible, and bleeding from his nose and has a rapidly darkening and swelling eye. 

"Steve, when are you going to stop coming to me like this?" The nurse asks, a fond smile on her face, and James had no idea how the kid-- Steve, he guessed-- could find it in him to smile back at her. 

"I'm sorry, ma'am," he says, bright blue eyes looking down at his feet, and he does seem like he's actually sorry. "You know I can't stand it when the bullies pick on the little kids." 

"It's not your job to look after them," the nurse replies easily, as if this is a conversation they've had before. 

"Sure it is, who else is gonna do it?" Steve responds easily, and James blinks. 

_Who's gonna be lookin' after you when you're lookin' after them,_ he thinks to himself, ice pressed firmly to his jaw. 

"First time in the infirmary?" Steve asks him a little later, sitting on the other small cot in the room. James nods. 

"It gets easier," Steve says, eyes full of something like pity. Anger swells up in James' chest, because who is this scrawny blonde kid to tell him that it gets easier, to offer him pity like he needs it? 

Steve seems to sense he's said something wrong, and turns slightly, shrugging. "Or it doesn't, if you don't end up here again." 

\---

"Bucky, hey Buck!" Steve's calling for him across the school lawn, and James winces, turning. He hates that his teeth stick out, hates that Steve thinks it's okay for him to call him Bucky even though they've met once in an infirmary. They aren't friends. Buck- _James_ isn't interested in being friends with Steve. He's more trouble than he's worth. 

"Rogers," he replies, raising his eyebrows. The bruise on his jaw is an ugly mottled green and yellow, but at least it doesn't hurt to move the muscles in his face anymore. "You need something?" 

"Yeah," Steve says, bending over, hands on his knees to catch his breath. "Yeah hang on a second." 

"I don't have all day, I gotta get home to-" Steve shoves a book in his hand and straightens. It's their compulsory reading book, he must have left it in the classroom. He looks from the book, battered and spine nearly broken to Steve, red in the face and still wheezing. 

"You wanna come to my house for a snack?" James finds himself asking, and Steve nods, smiling bright. 

James' mother, of course, loves Steve, who's so different from her own four children with their dark hair and dark eyes and so _polite_. James just rolls his eyes behind her back, and smiles as Steve fights the urge to laugh. 

They end up eating crackers and sharing a glass of milk, because really that's all the Barnes family can give as a snack, and Steve nibbles on his as if it's precious. Life must be hard for him, then. He thinks he heard something about Steve's family being Irish immigrants, but who knows whether or not what the kids at the play grounds spout is true. 

"Thanks for bringing me my book," James says, and Steve shrugs. 

"Didn't want you to get behind," he answers, looking resolutely at his cracker. James smiles because he knows Steve can't see him. 

 

The second fight Bucky ever gets in is on his ninth birthday, two weeks after bringing Steve home for crackers and milk, and he comes home with a shiner so big his mom gasps at the sight of him. 

"James Barnes, have you been fighting?" She screeches at him, and Bucky grins at her, so big that it makes his eye hurt but he doesn't care, because the look on Tommy Spencer's face had been worth it when Bucky had hit him over the head while he had Steve around the neck. 

\---

It goes like that for years; Bucky and Steve both terribly skinny and clever, always sticking up for one another when they could. Bucky's had more black eyes and cuts than he knows what to do with, and Steve's the same way. 

After the market crashes, Bucky can remember the sinking feeling in his stomach when he thinks about Steve's mom and her job, and how hard it is for them to make it anyway. They never talk about it, though, but Bucky brings them over for dinner whenever he can, especially now since his two older siblings have gone off, one to the army and the other to California. 

He watches as Steve grows, his limbs barely elongating and never gaining any weight. He, on the other hand, barely recognizes himself by the time they're both sixteen. He's a full head and a half taller than Steve now, much heavier and he can recognize the ways girls look at him, the way their eyes slide down his arms and chest and back up to his face when they speak. They never glance twice at Steve, and Bucky thinks that's a damn shame because it goes like this:

Steve Rogers is the greatest man Bucky has ever known. From his love of literature and art to his safeguarding of those who cannot stand up for themselves-- which, more often than not these days, is himself-- to his inability to hold liquor to the look in his eyes when anyone asks how his mom is doing. 

Bucky can't imagine being Steve and having to watch his mother waste away, knowing that death is coming for her, but never knowing when or how he will strike. He thinks about it and crumbles inside, wants to hold Steve close and never let him go because he cannot stand the thought of life without Steve Rogers. Strong, steady Steve who knew they were going to be friends before they were friends and was just waiting for Bucky to catch up. 

Bucky feels like he's always scrambling to catch up with Steve, to be on the same page. 

Sometimes, he feels like the only thing he's good for is to keep Steve safe when no one else will. 

\---

The day Steve's mother dies, Bucky sits with him at the church for endless hours. Steve does nothing except stare at the altar, never blinking or crying, just staring. Bucky sits with him until he turns his head, catches sight of him and starts slightly, like he had no idea Bucky was there in the first place. 

"What am I going to do?" Steve asks, and Bucky can't stand how small he looks, how small his voice is. 

"You're going to survive," he answers firmly, because he knows this is what Steve needs, putting his hands on his shoulders. "You're going to live your life because that's what she wants you to do, Steve. You're going to be sad, because she was your Ma, and you're allowed to be sad, but you're going to live. And you're going to do art for her, and read for her and you're going to live your life, Steve. For her. To make her happy." 

_And to make me happy,_ he thinks, but doesn't say. 

Steve closes his eyes and nods, lets himself lean into Bucky's chest, and cries.

\---

September 1, 1939, Hitler invades Poland and Britain goes to war with Germany and Russia. Bucky feels like he's going to throw up when he reads the headline over breakfast with Steve. It's his nineteenth birthday today, and ten years ago he started fighting bullies. 

Sometimes he thinks he'll never stop. 

"You gonna join the Army?" Steve asks him, and Bucky shakes his head. 

"Nah, someone's gotta look after your stupid hide," he replies, and pretends he doesn't see the terrible relief in Steve's eyes. 

In early 1942, Bucky drops out of college and joins anyway. 

He knows he won't be able to look Steve in the eye, but they need the money, _Steve_ needs the money to continue being an art student, and Bucky is willing to give up his life for his best friend to have a good one. 

He ignores the hurt that passes over Steve's face when he tells him, thinks he persuades him to keep from enlisting. 

"I won't let you do it alone, Bucky!" Steve yells one night, and Bucky laughs. 

"Like hell you won't. God, Steve, just for once listen to me. You don't need to do this. You're so talented, you'll have so many opportunities."

"And what about you, huh? The Army? You'll get killed." Steve's voice is cold now, low, but Bucky shrugs.

"You know the only thing I was ever good at was saving your hide," he jokes, but Steve doesn't laugh. 

He slams the door so loud that a book falls off the shelf. 

\---

Then, Steve tries to join anyway. 

The first time Steve tells him he's joining, Bucky nearly screams at him, nearly pushes him out the window with how scared he is, but then Steve comes back with his 4F stamped on his card and breathes a sigh of relief. 

He keeps trying, though, twice, three, four times. After the fifth time Bucky finds him outside a movie theatre, getting beat up.

He pulls the guy off of him, kicks him in the ass. "Pick on someone your own side," he says, throws a punch to the man's jaw. The man runs off, and Bucky turns to Steve, still on the ground, offers him a hand. 

"I had him on the ropes," Steve says. 

"I know you did," Bucky sighs, picking up Steve's paper. Another recruitment card falls of, and Bucky sighs with frustration. 

"You get your orders?" Steve asks, eyes scanning over his uniform. Bucky feels hot all over, suddenly, swallows thickly and nods.

"Sergeant James Barnes, One Hundred and Seventh," he recites and Steve nods. "I ship out tomorrow morning," he adds in the silence. 

\---

They have another fight, and this is not how Bucky wants to leave it, leave them. He wants Steve to know he cares, that he's only doing this so that Steve can go to school and be a famous artist and make something of himself. He needs Steve to know that he's willing to do that for him, that he cares about him. That he's not alone. 

"Don't do anything stupid until I get back," Bucky says finally, giving up on their fight. 

"How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you." 

Bucky turns around, walks back to him, gives him one last hug, because he knows this may be the last time they tease and joke with each other. Steve's like his brother, much closer than his other brothers, and jesus, he has no idea what he'd do without the kid. What he's going to do without the kid. 

"Don't win the war 'til I get there," Steve's voice follows him, and Bucky turns around once more to give him a salute. 

It's the last time he sees Steve for almost two years.


	2. a great fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: canon character death.

When he makes it to Italy, Bucky finds a large manilla envelope stuffed into the side pocket of his pack, his name scrawled on the front in a familiar hand. He scoffs as he opens it, and an even more familiar book falls out. 

"The Waste Land," Bucky murmurs to himself, thumbing open to the page where a note sticks out. "Steve, what did you do?" 

_Bucky,_ the note reads, as if in response to Bucky's grumbling, _I wanted you to have this. I know you know it's my favorite, and I know you don't like it, but please. Don't send it back. Keep it. You can give it back at the end of the war._

He swallows, blinks back the tears pricking at his eyes and puts the note back in the book. He can see the coffee stains from when he accidentally knocked his mug over at the table and got it everywhere. Steve had scoffed at him, picked the book up and peeled apart the pages and carefully let it dry in the window. 

"Why are you even bothering with that, let me buy you a new one," Bucky said, but Steve shook his head at him. 

"It was my mother's," he said in response, and it was all Bucky could do to nod his head and leave him to it. 

\---

 _I will show you fear in a handful of dust_ , he reads later and finally understands. 

\---

He becomes a sniper. 

Bucky's always had good aim, which annoyed the crap out of Steve. Not because he was jealous, because Steve was good enough at finding a way to get things where they need to be, and he's good at math and trajectory and things that Bucky doesn't even begin to understand. No, usually it bothered him because it meant Bucky throwing the last of his food or something that would get everywhere in the process of sailing into the garbage. 

"Stop that, would you?" Steve had said once as Bucky grinned at the nice _thunk!_ his apple core made against the can. "You'll get lettuce everywhere and we'll have rats." 

"Rats don't eat lettuce," Bucky answered, but Steve kicked his shin. He was small, but he'd always been able to kick to hurt. 

"Rats eat anything, you know that. So, stop." 

"All right, all right," he conceded, rubbing his shin. 

In any case, the long breath Bucky takes before each shot is familiar to him, even if the metal of the trigger isn't. He can take any gun-- prefers his own, of course, who wouldn't?-- fire a few practice shots and know the warp of the scope, the bend of the barrel under his hands. 

He takes out enemies in two shots or less, and wonders, briefly, how Steve would react to how ruthless he's become. 

Bucky knows that these Germans, these Italian soldiers must be like him. They must love their families and countries and want to fight to protect them. He knows the Germans are rooted in nationalism, have been ever since Otto von Bismarck took control and tipped the balance of power. He knows they're just men fighting for their country. For their freedom. 

Except, Bucky thinks that fighting for one's country is a load of bullshit. Let's get one thing straight: Bucky does not fight for America. He fights for Steve, so that Steve can have a better life and do what he wants to do and doesn't have to worry. Bucky puts his life on the line so that Steve can live his, and be happy, because if anyone ever deserved to be happy, it's Steve. 

He doesn't care that these men may be the same as him, that they may be as innocent as he is. He does not care that people who protest the war would not approve of his actions, he does not need to reconcile with himself the fact that the lives of these men weigh heavily on his shoulders, that their blood stains his hands bright red. He only cares that Steve is okay, that he is safe, and it makes it all worth it. If sometimes at night he imagines the sad look that Steve would give him, the shake of his head and the disappointed tilt to his mouth, the soft, "You did what you had to, everyone did," he doesn't mention it. 

It's part of why he doesn't write. 

The other part is that he has no idea what he would say.

\---

Bucky gets captured. 

He doesn't know how it happens, exactly, because he knows he's well hidden in the ridge of hills, overlooking where his men are fighting. One second, he's aiming his rifle a little to the left, to account for the bend of this particular gun, (he calls her Lucy), and then the world is black. 

\---

When he wakes, he knows, deep in his bones, that he is in Hell for the sins he's committed. Steve was always trying to get him to go to confession, even if he wasn't Catholic. 

"You don't have to be Catholic, Buck, you just have to believe," he'd said, and Bucky wonders if it's too late now, to confess.

A man with a red skull stands over him, grins, and it makes Bucky sick to his stomach, and the world goes black again.

\---

"Sergeant James Barnes," he's mumbling, because they keep wanting him to repeat his rank, his name. He thought he saw the short doctor in the room with him, gathering things, and somewhere, far off in the distance, he hears something that sounds like the deafening rush of fire. 

"Bucky?" a voice says, and he opens his eyes again. He blinks, blinks again and lets out his breath. 

"Steve?" he croaks, and Steve nods in confirmation. He looks- he looks _huge_ , like something out of a sci-fi movie, and Bucky knows, knows he must be dead and this is his ultimate punishment. 

Steve gets him out, helps him up, mutters a quick, "I thought you were dead," and before Bucky can stop himself he says, 

"I thought you were smaller." 

Steve looks like he's about to laugh, but then he makes sure Bucky can stand on his own before looking around quickly. This can't be real. This can't be happening. He's dead. He has to be. 

"What happened to you?" he asks, because he needs to know how they both ended up here, if Steve's dead too or if he's just some horrifying hallucination. 

"I joined the Army!" Steve replies, and oh, so Steve's not actually dead, then, Steve's ok. Bucky can breathe again. 

\---

"Did it hurt?" he asks, stumbling down the hallway as Steve explains the procedure he went through. 

"A little," Steve replies, rushing forward, looking for a way out. 

"Is it permanent?" 

"So far." Steve pulls him down another hallway and leads him through a door. 

Bucky knows he's in Hell again. This is the pit of fire that he heard earlier, the screams of the alarms, and Steve's yelling at the short doctor and a tall man that Bucky does not recognize from his haze of memories. 

Then, the tall man pulls off his face, and Bucky is sick with the way he grins, the glint of white teeth against the red skull. 

"You don't have one of those, do you?" he half jokes, because it would be his luck to be stuck in Hell with a Steve who is not his Steve and is actually a demon. 

Unsurprisingly, Steve does not answer, but instead yells at the men as they run away. Steve's always hated cowards, Bucky knows. 

They climb endless amounts of stairs, Bucky runs across a metal connector and it snaps under his weight and the curl of the flame. 

"There's gotta be a rope or something," he yells to Steve, who shakes his head.

"No, just go, get outta here!" 

"Not without you!" Bucky screams back, because he cannot leave him again. 

\---

They get out. They walk through the countryside, a never-ending path of trees and mines until they reach the base. The men gather around them, and Bucky says, "Let's hear it for Captain America!" because he knows that this man, this impostor is not Steve Rogers. 

\---

He finds himself in a bar. Ever since he's been captured, he finds himself drifting in and out of consciousness. He'll wake up in a cot, find himself eating with what's left of the 107th, then back in his cot, or maybe in Steve's tent, talking to him about nothing. 

It's part of how he knows he's dead. 

Life wasn't like this-- like the flickering of movie scenes, hours and days skipped over like nothing. He must have died in that room, in that forest, on that ridge, because he knows this can no longer be his life. 

Steve approaches him, sits down next to him in his Captain's uniform and Bucky can't stand the pull of his own shirt on his back, the way it sags around his waist. He feels like he's nine years old again, and suddenly, it's all too much. 

"That scrawny kid from Brooklyn who didn't know how to back down from a fight? I'm following him." 

Steve looks properly chagrined, but then a beautiful woman in a red dress-- another demon, Bucky's sure-- walks in and steals Steve's attention away. 

"I'm invisible," Bucky laughs, "I'm you." 

"Maybe she's got a friend," Steve answers, voice wry, and Bucky sighs. 

\---

They go on mission after mission after mission, destroy base after base after base, until the big one, the one with the train and the zip line. 

"Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?" Bucky asks, because he knows this isn't Steve, but he'll remember if Bucky reminds him. 

"And I threw up?" Yes, there it is, what Bucky likes to hear. 

"This is payback, isn't it?"

"Now why would I do a thing like that?" Steve grins at him, and suddenly Bucky is moving down the line, letting go and landing on the train. 

They get inside, and Bucky knows that this is where he dies. That maybe he hasn't been in Hell, but in Purgatory, a waiting room, and he knows _knows_ that he will never see his home again. 

"I had him on the ropes," he says to Steve, really wanting to say, _I'm sorry I never loved you like you deserve,_ and _I would do anything to stay with you, you have to know that_. 

"I know you did," Steve answers, and for a fleeting moment, Bucky wishes he were real. 

\---

In the next moment he's out the side of the train, holding on for dear life. Steve comes out, tries to save him, but in the end, Bucky lets go. The handle tears off and he falls, letting out a cry of anguish. 

Not for his life, because it's hard to be afraid of death when you know you're already dead, but because he knows this time, there will be no Steve to save him.


End file.
